# Removing the first word
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [April 30, 2017, 10:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937 "2017-04-30T10:55:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TheCamer1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/TheCamer1)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2017, 10:55am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937/1 "2017-04-30T10:55:33Z")
I have searched all through the forums here, and I can't seem to find what I want.
Basically, I have a large number of files all with the first name of the composer at the beginning of the file name, which I don't want them to have. For example:
Gabriel Faure- Sicilienne for Cello and Piano, Op. 78
should be:
Faure- Sicilienne for Cello and Piano, Op. 78
Also, I want to remove the ', Op. 78'. Obviously the number is different for each one, and could just be ', Op. 2'.
So,
Gabriel Faure- Sicilienne for Cello and Piano, Op. 78
should be:
Faure- Sicilienne for Cello and Piano
Also, how do you check each file name and remove a certain character- in particular ':'?
Thanks for any help!
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2017, 11:08am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937/2 "2017-04-30T11:08:49Z")
> [@TheCamer1](#):
>
> I have searched all through the forums here, and I can't seem to find what I want.
> ...
What about [/t/13748/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/13748/1)
---
### Author:  [@TheCamer1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/TheCamer1)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2017, 12:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937/3 "2017-04-30T12:26:43Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> What about [/t/13748/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/13748/1)
Through looking at that and this helpful page: [https://docs.mp3tag.de/actions](https://docs.mp3tag.de/actions)
I managed to figure it out. It was
Replace: ^\w\*\b
With:
Took a bit of guesswork and extrapolation. Not easy! It should be mentioned somewhere in the same place that any section of a tag or filename can be referred to by the below list, and that these can just be put next to each other with \* to say "as many as you want until the next expression".
So ^ is the start of the line, \w\* is any sequence of characters until \b which is the end of a word.
Put all that into an action called Replace with regular expression by going Actions: Actions: [New File Icon/Picture]: [New File Icon/Picture]: Replace with regular expression.
Hopefully that helps someone!
Line anchors
^ matches the start of a line
$ matches the end of a line
Sets
[abc] will match either of "a", "b", or "c"
[^abc] will match any character other than "a", "b", or "c"
[a-z] will match any character in the range "a" to "z"
[^A-Z] will match any character other than those in the range "A" to "Z"
\w Any word character - all alphanumeric characters plus the underscore
\s Any whitespace character.
\d Any digit (0-9)
\l Any lower case character
\u Any upper case character
\W non-word character
\S non-whitespace character
\D no digit
\L non-lower case character
\U non-upper case character
\t Tab
\n New line
\r Carriage Return
\r\n Windows style line break
\xnn char with unicode hex value nn
\x{nnnn} char with unicode hex value nnnn
Word boundaries
\b matches a word boundary (the start or end of a word)
\B matches only when not at a word boundary
---
### Author:  [@DetlevD](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/DetlevD)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 5:09am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937/4 "2017-05-01T05:09:31Z")
> [@TheCamer1](#):
>
> ... I managed to figure it out. It was Replace: ^\w\*\b ... So ^ is the start of the line, \w\* is any sequence of characters until \b which is the end of a word. ...
Because \b points to the end of a word, ...
you have overlooked the fact, that there may be following one or more space characters, between the first word and the second word, ...
therefore your example has left a space character.
DD.20170501.0914.CEST
---
### Author:  [@TheCamer1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/TheCamer1)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 5:24am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937/5 "2017-05-01T05:24:30Z")
> [@DetlevD](#):
>
> Because \b points to the end of a word, ...
> you have overlooked the fact, that there may be following one or more space characters, between the first word and the second word, ...
> therefore your example has left a space character.
>
> DD.20170501.0914.CEST
Yes, that was a mistake, thanks. I'm all new to this!
---
### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/removing-the-first-word/18937/6 "2026-02-09T12:26:48Z")